Cookie-Cutter Romance
by Gamemakers
Summary: After the book is complete, Katniss and Peeta start a new project to keep themselves busy.


It still seemed like a waste of perfectly good food to her, but Katniss had to admit that the creation beginning to take over Peeta's dining room table was pretty impressive. And delicious, judging by the bites she'd snuck here and there during construction. She tried not to think about that too much. Peeta had turned a blind eye towards the missing candy shingles earlier, but mess with the finished product, and who knew what would happen?

Well, she assumed it was the finished product. The gingerbread village looked finished to her. The three houses matched the originals perfectly. The broken steps leading up to Haymitch's front door, the pine tree in Peeta's backyard, the green shingles above the porch of hers, everything was there. Shredded coconut and a mixture of powdered and granulated sugar captured the light sparkle of the freshly-fallen snow outdoors. To her, it was perfect, but Peeta still worked in the kitchen on a few final details. He'd refused to tell her what they were when she asked, and she'd been banished to the dining room while he finished up.

She didn't mind the opportunity to study their creation in peace. These projects - the primroses, the book, now this - kept them busy, kept them sane, and for that alone, she was grateful, but before this, none of them had felt like moving on. The others had been trapped in the past, but no ghosts clung to the miniature Victors Village. No, this was for her and Peeta alone.

The door opened, and the warm scent of fresh-baked gingerbread floated into the room."What do you think?" Peeta asked as he came in.

"I think that the longer I look at it, the more beautiful it gets." She turned to smile at him. "You did good, Mellark."

"Thank you."

He leaned down for a quick kiss, and as they parted, she finally noticed the plate of cookies he held. "What you got there?" The little gingerbread men on the tray were no reason to keep her out of the kitchen for the last twenty minutes.

"Want one?" He held out one, and as any sane woman would, Katniss accepted. Soft with just a bit of chew and still warm, the cookie was heaven on earth. "Hey, these turned out pretty well," Peeta said around a bite of his own gingerbread man.

"You sound so surprised."

He shrugged, suddenly sheepish. "I didn't really make them to taste good. I just had extra dough and a bit of space left on the baking sheet. I'm waiting for the other ones to cool down so I can decorate them. They should be ready soon."

"Do I get to help with this part?" she teased.

"If you want to. I suppose there's no threat of you eating the ingredients now." He winked at her, releasing a fit of butterflies in her stomach that she'd only recently come to appreciate.

Katniss' voice turned teasing. "Would I do that?"

"Yes, but I love you anyway. Ready?" He put out his arm, and she let him pull her up from where she'd been sitting. They walked together to the kitchen, where the cooled cookies waited for them. "I was thinking that our neighborhood seemed kind of empty without anyone to live in it."

"You, me, and Haymitch?" she asked, studying the three figures. They had to be. One was missing a leg, another had a lump on the side of its head that she guessed would become a braid with a bit of decorating, and the third, even in cookie form, had that unmistakable hunch to its shoulders that she'd come to associate with Haymitch.

"That's what I was thinking. I'll do the faces if you'll give them some clothes."

"They already look really good," she said as she pulled up her sleeves and started washing her hands. Already, she was picturing the clothing she'd give their little gingerbread family. Haymitch was easy enough, as he always cycled through about three shirts and two pairs of pants, and she didn't care much what she wore, but gingerbread Peeta in the white shirt she loved... She shouldn't be thinking about whether or not a cookie could be sexy.

Katniss had known beforehand that the faces would be as beautiful as one of Peeta's paintings, and she should have foreseen that the clothes would end up as solid blobs of color. Still, she liked them, and Peeta seemed to like them as well, and that was all that really mattered. "Are they ready to take up residence?" she asked as they gave them one last once-over.

"I think so. You?"

"Yeah." She grabbed the Haymitch one, and Peeta grabbed the two others, and they headed back to the dining room. Katniss set Haymitch's in front of his house, cementing his feet to the ground with frosting and hiding it with some extra fake snow. When she looked over, Peeta had already installed hers next to the primrose garden at the side of her house and started on his own. It was accurate, just like the rest of the village, but something about it felt wrong. "Wait," she said, and he stopped to look up at her.

Katniss thought about it for a moment before taking the Peeta cookie from him. Then, she moved it over to stand next to hers, their hands overlapping. "I think it fits better over here." She didn't realize the second meaning until the words had already escaped, but once spoken, she had to admit how true they were.

The significance was not lost on Peeta. "You're sure?" he asked, and she had never heard him seem so nervous.

She turned from the village to meet his eyes. "Absolutely certain." The grin that spread across his face at those words was one of those sights that she wanted to ingrain in her mind forever, but she didn't get to admire it for long before he kissed her. The gingerbread Katniss and Peeta can wait a moment longer for their happy ending.


End file.
